McLean lost quick wit, sharp intellect

People attending the hide inspector’s funeral heard him on a recording, reciting his cowboy poem that tells of “the Boss” whose “seed stock was high-headed” and “finally left the home place garden wearin’ fig leaf clothes.”

By the last verse, where an old cowhand claims he’s been “earmarked, dipped and branded,” the poet’s friends and family had been reminded of his wit and his faithfulness to that ultimate “Boss.”

But they knew that was only one facet of this Texas Panhandle Renaissance man.

Readers of this newspaper’s Opinion page will recognize the name of Bill Reeves, some with smiles and some with exasperation. He’s the McLean native and U.S. Navy veteran who wrote scores of letters to the editor in his retirement years, some of them making a cogent point in two sentences or less.

A quick selection:

u25A0 “What Would Jesus Drive? The money-changers from the car lots.” (2002)

u25A0 “It is time for the pouting, petulant, perfidious pseudo-politicos to get back in the harness.” (2003)

u25A0 “In the production of congressional and legislative pork, it is the lobbyist who slops the hogs.” (2007)

u25A0 “There is but one right given us, and that is the right to exist subsequent to conception.” (2007)

u25A0 “We value comeliness over Godliness.” (2003)

Reeves, who died March 29 at age 82, was a conservative Republican but no blind follower. He once suggested that all the Panhandle GOP legislators be removed from office. He wanted honesty and true public service returned to politics. To that end, he was active in the Texas Silver Haired Legislature as well as Gray County governmental issues.

He most likely was the last “inspector of hides and animals” in Gray County, having won the office in 2002 with the goal of eliminating it. That achievement resulted in part from a desire to clean the courthouse of an unneeded position and in part from his impish sense of humor.

Before the election, he told reporter Rick Storm, “I already have my concession speech made up for when I get beat. For $50, I was able to file for a job with no pay or responsibilities, and for that I feel I’m marginally qualified.”

Reeves knew the inside workings of government. From his job as the McLean postmaster, he built a 36-year postal service career that landed him in California and Washington, D.C., among other places. He spent time as a federal postal inspector, and I can only imagine the stories he could tell about national political figures.

Upon retirement in his hometown, though, he rarely dropped names. He and his high school sweetheart, Lynn, returned to being regular Panhandle people. He fed a few cattle and bought a burro or two, grew a white beard and used his deep voice in the Methodist Church choir.

He won a woodworking ribbon at the Tri-State Fair, published a book of poetry, wrote an unpublished novel called “The Diary of Armitage Shanks” (Google that name to find another example of his wit) and as late as last Memorial Day, played “Taps” on his cornet at Hillcrest Cemetery.

He didn’t talk about it, but he had been an officer in Panhandle Mensa. You have to be sharper than a rancher’s pocketknife to qualify for that group of high IQs. You couldn’t see religion on Reeves’s sleeve, but he was a believer – just a real smart one.

A three-sentence letter he wrote in 2001 ended like this:

“We are blessed for one reason only, and that is so we may bless others. When we fail to share our blessings with others, we break a chain of benevolence extending from the very gates of heaven.”